That was a rather different one! Talking to my brother on Boxing Day, he thought that I had experienced a White Christmas before, but as I would have been between 2 and 5 (he wasn't sure which), I wouldn't have remembered it. The weather forecast was really quite accurate for once, and when John got up in the early hours, he came back to bed muttering about it snowing. When we got up, everything was covered in a covering of white, except the road, which was rather magical. My first White Christmas. Even better, by the time we were ready to go out to do stuff, it had mostly thawed.
The sun came out and we were able to do our favourite ritual for Christmas. Once we had fed the Boys in the Country, we walked from there to the One Acre Wood, where we beat the bounds and then offered a Yuletide drink to the big oak, the King of the Forest. There wasn't much snow in the wood, but it had settled on the log bench and someone had been to visit. We don't think it was a cat, as there aren't any houses close by, but wondered if it was a pine marten. Whoever it was, was long gone by the time we were there.
Because we had a modicum of faith in the weather forecast, I dug up the Christmas vegetables on Christmas Eve - two parsnips, one of which was particularly fine, a bunch of carrots, some potatoes and a couple of white radish. They were delicious roasted on Christmas evening with a duck. and there are more to be roasted tomorrow to make a thick and rich mid-winter soup.
The cold has settled in now, and the past few days have been sunny but raw with a wind from the East. Checking round the Orchard yesterday, I was followed by a very rotund robin, fluffed up against the cold, but waiting to see if I fell over so he could have a feast of human flesh. The Blue and Great Tits are all over the fat balls we put out for them, and today I installed my Christmas present to myself - a bird feeder with wildlife camera included. It will remain in place until late March or early April, depending on the weather, at which point I stop putting out food as Nature provides.
Of course it is not just fat robins you find in trees at this time of year and in this weather. Rebus likes to be in charge of the garden, but the snowy and frosty ground is not totally to his taste. He therefore supervised me dealing with laundry from the potentially warmer safety of the pear tree.
It is the time of year for mindlessly scrolling through drivel on smartphones, but you do spot the occasional nugget of interest. I saw a recipe for eggs - they called them poached, but I think they are more baked - which I just had to try as we are still overly well supplied with eggs. You whisk up the whites with a bit of salt until they are really stiff, then you put cooking parchment on a baking tray and using those very cheffy rings, make towers of egg white. In the top of each you make a shallow dent and place carefully an egg yolk, then cover that with finely grated cheese of your choosing, plus a bit of pepper and salt to taste. You bake them in a preheated oven (in my case to Gas Mark 5) for about 5 minutes and they are done, and really very tasty - a sort of savoury Iles Flottant.
They should have been prettier, but I couldn't find my stainless steel chef's rings!
So that is it for 2025, but i will review the year properly next week. Enjoy your celebrations and stay warm!
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